Calm After the Storm
by mockerybird
Summary: It's two a.m. by the time she has calmed down enough to even attempt going to bed.


tag to 2.09-Aliens in a Spaceship

**Calm after the Storm **

It's two a.m. by the time she has calmed down enough to even attempt going to bed. She prepares methodically; movements so familiar after years of practice that she doesn't even need to concentrate on them – it's all muscle memory – but she does anyway. Her grip is so tight on the corner of the blanket that her knuckles turn white from the force of it. She looks down at her hand. _The hand consists of three sections: the carpal bones, the metacarpal bones and the finger bones._ This is good, familiar. Bones are her anchor, she knows them, knows them better than people that's for sure.

She's about to finally crawl under the covers and never – at least until morning – come out again, when someone knocks on the door. Her first reaction is mild panic. After the day she has had she isn't even that surprised by how fast her heart rate gets only from hearing the unexpected voice of someone's knuckles hitting the hard wood of the door. Then she starts to think about who might be standing outside. It can't be Angela: she would have called. Besides, she is quite sure Angela is spending the night with Hodgins.

That leaves only Booth. She doesn't know if it is required that FBI agents do not sleep at night, or if it's just a bizarre Seeley Boothian code of conduct, the need to be always ready for whatever situation arises, but it is reassuring somehow.

She takes a deep breath, trying to calm down her overtaxed nerves. And because she _can_ now. The memory of the fear of not being able to breathe anymore, of dying from a few hours ago is so stark that she needs to take another deep breath, then another one. She doesn't realize that she is slowly working her way towards a full-out panic attack, but she does realize the gentle hand on her back, coming seemingly out of nowhere.

"Hey, Bones, it's okay now. You're safe," Booth says. He leads her to the coach, and to her surprise she lets herself be led. She's vaguely aware of Booth putting some boxes – Chinese food probably – on the coffee table, before pulling her into his lap, into the circle of strong arms.

It feels like as if she is a little girl again. She remembers being ten and falling off her bike while trying to show Russ that she was big girl and could ride a bike without touching the handlebar. Their mother took her in her arms in much the same way Booth is doing now.

It takes a few minutes to regain her composure. She extracts herself from Booth arms; though she knows that humans' need for comfort is an anthropologically explicable fact, she has never been comfortable with either giving or receiving it.

She stands to pick up the boxes from the coffee table and goes to the kitchen to find some plates for the food. Not that Chinese food needs plates, but looking for plates is as good of an excuse to busy herself with doing something as any other. She doesn't ask Booth to follow her or question what he is doing in her apartment at almost three in the morning, although…

"I thought the door was locked."

Booth clears his throat, a nervous gesture. "It isn't, now," he says, his voice far too nonchalant.

She snorts and makes a mental note to call someone tomorrow to repair the lock.

"Need any help?" Booth's voice comes from directly behind her. She can't help her reaction; she jumps a little, her grip on the plate loosens and it falls to the floor, breaking into hundreds of tiny pieces.

She is about to bend down to clean up the mess, when Booth grabs her arm and turns her to face him.

"What?" she asks, confused. There is something in the way Booth gazes at her that just doesn't make any sense to her. Some emotion she can't really understand, or is just unable to identify.

"You almost died today," Booth says.

She doesn't know what he wants her to say. The only thing that comes to her mind is the fact that in every half second a person dies on Earth, and that person could be him or her or even Parker in any given half second. Though she doubts he would appreciate hearing this from her. He'd say she is far too rational, that she should learn to listen to her heart instead of her mind once in a while. And she would say that rational is the way she is, she can't be anything else, she doesn't know _how_. It would end with a stretched out, uncomfortable silence, Booth sulking even if he never admits to doing such a thing, and she feeling somewhat inadequate not understanding why.

So all she says is, "I'm alive."

"Yeah, you are." He takes a step towards her, then another.

The kiss is not a surprise. It would be a lie to claim kissing Booth has never crossed her mind before. It's natural, she is a woman after all, and Booth possesses every typical characteristic that a woman would find appealing in a partner.

The _way_ he kisses her is a surprise though. It's gentle and caring and a little more desperate than anything else. Like his primary goal is to reassure both of them that she is still there, that she is still alive, and he is there with her, like an anchor, keeping her in the reality of the here and now like bones usually do.

"Don't ever do that again," he says.

She'd like to ask him what not to do ever again _(get kidnapped?, do her job?, be who she is?, die almost?)_, but she doesn't. She just clings to him instead, hugging him tightly and he hugs just as tightly – if not more – back.


End file.
